416 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
And again, in speaking of domestic pilgrimages, he assigns to this saint the virtues for
which he was most noted by the citizens of Edinburgh in early times :-
Sa doith our commoun populare,
Quhilk war to lang for till declare,
Thair superstitious pilgramagie,
To monie divers imagis :
Sum to Sanct Roche, with diligence,
To naif thame from the pestilence :
For thair teith to Sanct Apollene ;
To Sanct Tredwell to mend thair em.
The Chapel of St Roque has not escaped the notice of the Lord Lyon King’s poetic eulogist,
among the varied features of the landscape that fill up the magnificent picture, as Lord
Marmion rides under the escort of Sir .David Lindsay to the top of Blackford Hill, in his
approach to the Scottish camp, and looks down on the martial array of the kingdom covering
the wooded links of the Borough Muir. James IT. is there represented as occasionally
wending his way to attend mass at the neighbouring Chapels of St Katherine or St Roque ;
nor is it unlikely that the latter may have been the scene of the monarch’s. latest acts of
devotion, ere he led forth that gallant array to perish around him on the Field of Flodden.
The Church of St John the Baptist, which was afterwards converted into the Chapel of the
Convent of St Katherine de Sienna, was then just completed; but Geoge Lord Setoun,
whose widow founded the convent a few years later, and Adam Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell,
her father, were among the nobles who marshalled their followers around the Scottish
standard, to march to the fatal field where both were slain. In accordance with the attributes
ascribed by Lindsay to St Roque, we find his chapel resorted to by the victims of
the plague, who encamped on the Borough Muir during the prevalence of that dreadful
scourge in the sixteenth century ; and the neighbouring cemetery became the resting-place
of those who fell a prey to the pestilence. Among the statutes of the Burgh is the following
for December 1530, “We do yow to wit, forsamekle a8 James Barbour, master and
gouernour of the foule folk on the Mure, is to be clengit, and hes intromettit with sindry
folkis gudis and clais quhilkis ar lyand in Sanct Rokis Chapell, Thairfor al maner of personis
that has ony clame to the said gudis that thai cum on Tysday nixt to cum to the officiaris,
and thar dais to be clengit, certyfyand thaim, and thai do nocht, that all the said clais gif
thai be of litill avail1 sal be brynt, and the laif to be gevin to the pure folkis.”’ k n o t
relates that this ancient chapel-an engraving of which is given in the re-issue of the
quarto edition of his history-narrowly escaped the demolition to which its proprietor had
doomed it about the middle of last century, owing to the superstitious terrors of the workmen
engaged to pull it down. The march of intellect, however, had made rapid strides ere
its doom was a second time pronounced by a new proprietor early in the present century,
when the whole of this interesting and venerable ruin was swept away, as an unsightly
encumbrance to the estate of a retired tradesman !
The teinds or tithes of the Borough Muir belonged of old to the Abbey of Holyrood;
but this did not interfere with the acquirement of nearly the whole of jts broad lands by
private proprietors, aud their transference to various ecclesiastical foundations. The name
Acta and Statutes, Burgh of Edinburgh. Mait. Misc, vol ii. p. 117.
ECCL ESIA S TICA L ANTIQUITIES. 417
of Gillie Grange, by which a part of it is still known, and that of The Grange, mw the property
of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., preserve memorials of the grange or farm which
belonged of old to the Collegiate Church of St Giles. Here, towards the close of the
prosperous reign of James IV., Sir John Crawford, a canon of St Giles’s Church, founded
and endowed the Church of St John the Baptist, portions of the ruins of which are believed
still to form a part of the garden wall of a house on the west side of Newington, called
Sciennes Hall. The following notice of its foundation occurs in the Inoentar of Pious
Donations, bearing the date 2d March 1512 :-c‘ Charter of Confirmation of a Mortification
be Sir Jo. Crawford, ane of the Prebenders of St Giles Kirk, to a kirk bigged by
him at St Geillie Grange, mortyiefying yrnnto 18 aikers of land, of the said lands, with
the Quarrie Land given to him in Charitie be ye said brongh, with an aiker and a quarter
of a particate of land in his 3 aikers and a half an aiker of the said mure pertaining to
him, lying at the east side of the Common Mure, betwixt the lands of Jo. Cant on the
west, and the Common Mure on the east and south parts, and the Murebrugh, now bigged,
on the north.” This church was designed as a chantry for the benefit of the founder and
his kin, along with the reigning Sovereign, the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and such others
as it was usual to include in the services for the faithful departed in similar foundations,
The chaplain was required to be of the founder’s family or name, and the patronage was
assigned after his death to the Town Council of Edinburgh.
Almost
immediately after its erection, the Convent of St Katherine de Sienna was founded by the
Lady Seytoun, whose husband, George, third Lord Seton, was slain at the Battle of Flodden.
‘( Efter quhais deceisa,” pap the Chronicle of the House of Seytoun, “his ladye
remanit wido continualie xlv yeiris. Sche gydit
hir sonnis leving quhill he was cumit of age; and thairefter sche passit and remainit in
the place of Senis, on the Borrow Mure, besyd Edinburgh, the rest of her lyvetyme.
Quhilk place sche helpit to fund and big as maist principale.” The history of this religious
foundation, one of the last which took place in Scotland in Roman Catholic times,
and the very last, we believe, to receive additions to the original foundation, acquires a
peculiar interest when we consider it in connection with the general progress of opinion
throughout Europe at the period. The Bull of Pope Leo X. by which its foundation is
confirmed, is dated 29th January 1517. Cardinal WoIsey was then supreme in England,
and Henry VIII. was following on the career of a devoted son of the Church which
won him the title of Defender of t h FaitA. Charles V., the future Emperor of Germany,
had just succeeded to the crown of Spain, and Martin Luther was still a brother of the
order of St Aqwstine. This very year Leo X. sent forth John Tetzel, a Dominican monk,
authorised to promote the sale of indulgences in Germany, and soon the whole of Europe
was shaken by the strife of opinions. The peculiar circumstances in which Scotland then
stood, delayed for a time its participation in the movement; and meanwhiIe the revenues
of the convent of St Katherine de Sienna received various augmentations, and the Church
of St John the Baptist was permanently annexed to it as the chapel of the convent. The
nuns, however, were speedily involved in the troubles of the period. In 1544 their convent
shared the same fate as the neighbouring capital, from the barbarous revenge of the
The Church of St John the Baptist did not long remain a solitary chaplainry.
Sche was ane nobill and wyse ladye.
Hi& of House of Seytoun, p, 37.
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